


The Search

by Alliance (Xazz)



Series: Cypress Hall [13]
Category: Flight Rising
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-25
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2019-05-28 15:47:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15052550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xazz/pseuds/Alliance





	1. Chapter 1

He hatched in an ooze of liquid and gasping breath. His small and new claws tried to tear their way through the tough membrane of his egg. The membrane was too thick and he so small. But he couldn’t stop. His egg was filled with fluid and he couldn’t breathe in it. No one helped him. He knew, to the very core of his being, that he had to make it out of this egg on his own. No one would help him. He managed to find a bit of air and breathed it in before trying again at the membrane that held him captive. He slashed and dug his little claws in, tearing open a large slit that caused the egg to spill open like a burst balloon. He went right from the fluid inside the egg to another acidic liquid. It burned the egg casing off his hide but didn’t hurt him at all.

Only once he was free did a familiar shadow pass over him. He looked up into the eyes of his mother and her eyes were not the same as his eyes. But her face was kind and with some strange pink magic, she lifted him out of the spawning pool and only the ground that was soft under claw and pulsated gently like a heartbeat.

“You passed your first test, my son,” she said, rather proudly and that made him feel accomplished. “Let’s go show your father.” She walked off elegantly and he stumbled after her a few steps, following her bright yellow tail. After a few steps, he got his feet under him and romped after her. They walked away from the nest he’d been born in down a winding cliff face trail towards a cove beach. The beach was made of black stones and the water was more green than blue, the caps of the waves yellow and even the sky seemed ill. At the shore’s edge, front claws in the lapping water, was another Guardian, looking out to the waves. He didn’t look like his mother. A thick red streak across his flank, a fractured yellow hide and butterfly patterned wings the same color as the distant sea where it turned deep blue.

As they approached the other Guardian turned and looked at them. “Finally, then,” they had a deep voice like he imagined the ocean to sound.

“So far,” his mother said. He was lagging behind a bit now, tired from the climb down the cliff. She used her wing to help propel him forward and he nearly tumbled tail over snout as he was pushed to the other Guardian. “A son for you,” she said.

He looked up at the big Guardian that was his father, his red eyes wide. “Hopefully he will last,” he said and looked away.

“You could at least _pretend_ to have some interest in your own spawn, Daeorm,” his mother snarled.

“If they survive, I gladly will,” [Daeorm](http://flightrising.com/main.php?p=lair&id=332919&tab=dragon&did=37988809) said. “No use getting excited over a hatchling that can’t make it in the Wasteland.”

“You’re awful,” she scoffed at him, “I don’t know why I put up with you.” She gathered him up into her claw and put him on her shoulder.

“Don’t coddle him, [Heliconia](http://flightrising.com/main.php?p=lair&id=332919&tab=dragon&did=38389603), you’ll do him no favors out here.”

“Shut up,” she growled. “This one will live, with your help or not.” She stalked off with him sitting between her wing blades. He squeaked at her. “That was your father. Unfortunately,” she sighed and took him into a cave cut into the very face of the rock. “Don’t mind him. He’s just grumpy. He wants strong children but… well, it isn’t for you to worry about,” she picked him up from between her wings and set him down gently on a thick reed mat.

At one point another hatchling joined him. They looked like him but without the red stripe he shared with his father. They played but his sister was weak. She couldn’t play with him often or got tired quickly. His father would scoff at her and always told his mother to leave her alone when she tried to help her. He didn’t know why they did that. Their mother took care of them. She was kind and sweet and had wings like the sky. But even her care couldn’t save his sister. She got an infection from the water outside their cave. She died without a name and they left her at the top of the cliff for the Wasteland to take back into itself. Then, he was alone. No more sister. No more playmates. His sister had died without a name.

“Mama,” he asked one day, looking up at her, meeting her pink eyes with his red. “Who am I?”

The question unsettled her. “You’re my son of course,” she said to cover it over. She put a gentle claw on him and scratched under his chin.

“Do I have a name?” His sister had not. He didn’t either. His parents did. Heliconia. Daeorm. Why didn’t they get one too?

Heliconia sat down beside him and gently stroked his head and neck. He liked that and gave a little purr when she did, his neck extending happily. “No, my son. Not yet. You’re a Plague dragon, and you must find your own name, you must earn it and take it. Nothing is given to you. Not even a name,” she said sadly.

“So I can pick whatever name I want?”

“Yes. But don’t choose in haste. Your name is important. It is who you are. It is what you will be. Don’t be so eager to grow up so fast,” she tickled him under the chin and that made him giggle and squirm around on the reed mat. Heliconia smiled and leaned down her great head to nuzzle him adoringly. “You’ll find your name yourself one day,” she promised.

He nodded. “I just don’t want to be like my sister. She died and no one knew who she was. I don’t want to do that,” he said.

“You won’t,” she promised, “I will make sure you won’t.”


	2. Chapter 2

He stood out on the beach, his front claws in the water. The pestilence didn’t even tingle against his scales the way it had eaten away at his father’s. His carcass lay down the beach full of worms and pests, the yellow skin discolored and bloated, the scales bulging unnaturally. He didn’t even look. Daeorm hadn’t survived the trials of living on the edge of the Contagion, he wasn’t worth offering a burial. That was what he’d always been told. His siblings had never been buried, barely even mourned. They’d just been given over to the Wasteland to be brought back to the land.

He glanced over when his mother came to stand next to him. The water lapped against her claws but didn’t touch her skin. Her Arcane magic prevented even the air from touching her. “There’s nothing left here, is there?”

“There was hardly anything here to begin with,” Heliconia said, stoic, staring out to the Sea. “All there was was mad Daeorm.”

“So we should leave?” he ventured. The idea terrified and thrilled him. He’d never left this cove. He’d only been told stories by his mother despite his father’s scolding to not fill his head with rabble.

“We should.”

“Where would we go?”

Heliconia’s pink eyes gazed out to the horizon. “When I met your father he claimed I was his Charge,” that made his eyes widen. Daeorm had never spoken _well_ about a Guardian’s Charge, claiming it was a weakness. “I believed him and put my Search on hold to go with him. He wanted a family he said. Heh. What he wanted was a project,” she didn’t look away from the horizon.

“Do you think it was true?” he ventured.

“I think he wanted a young girl to convince it was true,” she said and he looked away. “Now that he’s gone I can go back on my Search.”

“Can I come?” he asked softly.

“I don’t know where I’m going,” Heliconia said.

“I don’t want to be left there, mama,” he said. “I’d go anywhere with you.”

She looked at him fondly and reached up, patting his wing blade. “You’re a good boy, despite your father’s best efforts,” she said proudly. He beamed at her. She looked back at the cave in the side of the cliff. “There’s nothing here. The sun will be up for a time yet. No time like now,” and Heliconia spread her wings. “Let’s Search,” and she jumped into the rising wind.


End file.
